2018 Web Design Trends

01 Jan 2018 Web Design Trends

A lot can change in a year and that is the same for your business and your website design, so now that we are in 2018 we thought we would give our opinion on what we expect to see from website design in 2018 so here we go….

The importance of mobile-friendly website design has increased year on year for a number of years now and that trend doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Early in 2018, Google will be introducing their brand new Mobile First Index, which is going to place more importance on the mobile version of your website by making it the first to be seen in the search results. This means that your website must have a mobile-friendly design.

In 2016, 43.6 percent of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones, up from 35.1 percent in the previous year. – Statista

An AMP website ramps up the mobile experience for a visitor coming to your webpage by stripping down the code, instead of using external resources for the media files and running scripts in parallel to allow pages to load instantly.

Whether you decide to create a brand-new website or just enhancing an existing site, AMP is a good course of action for your 2018 website plans. No visitor, to any website, likes to wait for a webpage to fully load, and you certainly don’t want to give your potential customers to go instead to one of your (faster loading) competitors.

Animation triggers again are not a brand new idea or concept, but they have begun to be used in a new, more effective way. The best examples of scroll triggered animations are educational and strategic, minimalist and designed to increase conversions.

Another benefit of these triggered animations is that they also clean up the look of the website.

3. Increase in Micro-Interactions

Since the rise of social media such as Facebook micro-interactions has of course become extremely popular. People love the ability to contribute multiple different reactions to the likes of peoples posts and messages.

This obviously started with the “liking” of posts, whereas now you can add animations and multiple ‘emojis’ to show your feelings towards a post. These interactions allow the user to interact and share their thoughts with others without having to reload the page.

This is different to most of the static websites user experience, which normally makes users reload a page to take action, such as submit a review.

Now, this might look like a very small inconvenience, however, it creates a speed bump for customers that will cause some of them to bounce from the page, meaning you lose out on potential conversions.

Using this type of interaction on your website in 2018 will help your users to communicate in real-time whilst also increasing the speed that they have come to demand in a mobile world.

4. Bright Colours & Bold Fonts

To match the modern design styles we have just discussed, you will also need a font that will stand out. A bolder font will help your visitors to focus on your content, while the whitespace will make it easier to read and skim through.

Together, they’re a great match. Because people generally only spend a few seconds, up to a couple of minutes (if you are lucky), looking at your webpages, you really need to catch their attention with the colours and a design that will stand out.

The objective for your site should be to create an easy and enjoyable experience for the visitor which will keep them on your page for as long as possible and then eventually turn them into buyers.

In 2018, we may also see these fonts and colours taking the place of images. This makes sense for mobile especially. With large images slowing down web pages.

5. Responsive Design

Responsive design is less of a trend and much more of a principle, and it has already been around for a number of years already. However, responsive designs importance cannot be overlooked any longer.

It is 2018 so if your website isn’t already responsive then you have a major issue.

Responsive design is when your site is created and structured so that it resizes at different size screens to look appealing regardless of the screen size.

In 2018, we expect to see this design element continue to become more and more important and expand to include even newer forms of technology such as Augmented Reality.

6. Top Sticky Elements vs. Bottom Sticky Elements

You are likely already aware that users read from left to right, as they have done since they were children but have you thought about the fact that visitors are now starting to click the bottom of their phones or apps to navigate?

Since mobile app design has become so important to modern website design, website developers are now starting to make ‘sticky’ menu items scroll from the bottom of the site, rather than just at the top of the site’s pages.

It is because of progressive web apps which have caused this design evolution, as developers start to design for modern functionality.

7. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs)

In 2018, we are expecting to see an increase in this graphic formats use over the more common file types such as PNG, GIF and JPG.

The reason for this is that SVGs are vector images and not pixels, this gives you many advantages.

They are easily scalable even while they keep their quality, this means that they won’t affect page speed when animated because they don’t’ require any HTTP requests.

8. Irregular Grid Layouts

Grid layouts have provided an easy way for developers to group all of the elements of their website together, giving each page a theme and making it easier to navigate.

This design theory has been around for as long as I have, however, there’s been a shift in the amount and event the way that they are being used.

Many content management systems (CMS), including the most popular ones such as WordPress are now using grid designs as the basis for their templates. Early on in 2017, CSS grid was introduced to provide us with more options to use.

As we move into and through 2018, we will see a shift towards designers using more space and more irregular grid layouts for a more modern design. Simple styles which includes whitespace makes content stand out so that it is easier for your visitors to read and navigate your webpage. The styles are also easier on the eyes, encouraging users to spend more time on your site.